The “Akira Ikegami brand” on television is strong. After his career at NHK, he has appeared as a freelance journalist on numerous news commentary programs. Since April 2018, on TV Tokyo, Akira Ikegami Walks Through Contemporary History has occupied the Sunday prime-time slot. There is also a view that television in general is shifting from variety shows to educational programming, not limited to Ikegami’s programs.

What is particularly interesting is that programs featuring Ikegami devote a large share to explanations about the world. As the data show, Japan’s television news, newspapers, the internet, and smartphone news stand out for their paucity of world coverage, with international news limited to around 10% in each medium. In contrast to these overall trends, programs touting the Ikegami brand in which he appears sometimes devote more than half of their content to world news.

Amid the general de-emphasis of international reporting, we will look more deeply into why programs that take up events and phenomena around the world are gaining popularity and what kind of content they present. Here, we focus on TV Tokyo’s increasingly popular Akira Ikegami News Specials series.

Akira Ikegami (Photo: Dyor CC BY-SA 3.0) and TV Tokyo headquarters (Photo: Lombroso)

A focus on the world

How large is the share of international reporting in this program? Calculating the share of countries covered (Note 1) in the “Akira Ikegami News Specials” series from 2010 to 2017 (8 years, 51 programs), coverage about Japan accounted for 45.1%, while coverage about the rest of the world accounted for 54.8% (Note 2). Given that international reporting in regular news hovers around a mere 10% and tends to be avoided, the amount of international coverage in Ikegami’s programs stands out. The background to the low volume of international news in general reporting includes issues such as limited budgets proportional to viewers’ and readers’ low interest, and the difficulty for media to turn a profit. Contrary to such trends in international reporting, what explains the popularity of Ikegami’s program airing in the Sunday prime-time slot?

One factor behind its popularity may be that it explains the world in simple terms. The world is vast, and events and phenomena are shaped by complex interrelated factors. If regular reporting about the world is scarce, the world will appear even more complex and hard to understand to general viewers. Programs like this that convey complex events in a short time and in simple terms are likely easier to understand and more appealing to viewers. In fact, the program that launched Ikegami’s breakthrough was NHK’s Weekly Children’s News. You could say that the easy-to-understand style that even children can grasp is applied in his current programs as well.

However, if one’s view of the world is simplified to an extreme, it becomes impossible to capture the real-world complexity accurately. Titles such as “Closing in on the world’s astonishing dictators!,” “Where is Christianity vs. Islam heading?,” and “Why do Muslims dislike America?” suggest content that emphasizes stereotypes or group conflicts and are unlikely to foster genuine understanding of the world. These catchy titles and keywords that draw viewers’ interest can also verge on sensationalism.

There are also not a few nationalist or domestic-centric aspects. In reporting in general—even in international news—domestic-centrism is an important factor when news is produced, and when you move from straight news to variety-style shows, content appealing to patriotism can stand out even more. The “Akira Ikegami News Specials” exhibit such tendencies as well. Of course, there are many programs that take up Japan’s domestic issues, but there are also many programs that promote Japan’s excellence, such as “What Akira Ikegami Found! Japan’s Special Skills SP” and “Japan’s Underlying Strength.” Moreover, even within international topics, there are programs that focus on Japan and the achievements of Japanese people. A similar tendency can be seen in Ikegami’s book, “Seven Japanese Who Saved the World.”

Regional imbalance?

Now let’s look at the topics covered by this program (2010–2017) by region and country. The graph below shows the proportions of coverage by region. (Note 3)

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Compared to regular news, there were areas where the proportions differed greatly. In particular, it became clear that the amount of coverage about the United States is overwhelmingly large. Even in years when coverage in newspapers and other media concentrates on the U.S. due to presidential elections, the U.S. does not even reach 25% of international news. However, across eight years of “Akira Ikegami News Specials,” the U.S. accounted for as much as 37.0% of the program’s international coverage. Europe, similar to coverage by other news organizations, is also spotlighted to a considerable degree.

On the other hand, attention to Asia is relatively low compared to newspapers, and even combined with the Middle East, it amounts to about 26.3% (in 2016 newspapers, Asia and the Middle East accounted for 48% of international reporting). Within Asia, explanations about China and the Korean Peninsula accounted for as much as 85.6% of Asia excluding the Middle East, leaving most other Asian countries hardly covered. The high level of attention to the Middle East is also noteworthy, and it is not much different from Asia excluding the Middle East.

What resembles newspapers and other news media is that poor and developing countries—which constitute the majority by number of countries and population—are scarcely covered. Even when combining Africa, Central and South America, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the South Pacific, which make up the so-called Global South, the program’s coverage does not even reach 9%. Over the eight years of programs, India—arguably an economic and population giant—was never covered in depth even once.

Below are the top 10 countries covered by this program, showing which countries were particularly in focus in each region. The percentages indicate the shares within the international coverage portion.

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Toward more balanced programming

Although “Akira Ikegami News Specials” is an educational program that seriously explains the state of the world, its inclusion of multiple actors and celebrities means its entertainment aspect cannot be denied. The simplification of complex world affairs, sensationalism, and domestic-centrism can be seen as reflecting entertainment-oriented elements aimed at the Sunday prime-time slot. Moreover, rather than comprehensively explaining the world, it may be more accurate to say that the program explains topics that are usually highlighted in the news—things viewers have heard about. As a result, the regional skew in which poor and developing countries that rarely appear in regular news also go uncovered in Ikegami’s program may reflect this programmatic background.

The reality that the world is extremely complex cannot be avoided. If a news program reports on the world’s complexity without providing explanations, viewers lacking background knowledge will likely lose interest and change the channel. On the other hand, if the complex reality is overly simplified or a bias is created by reporting mostly on certain regions, ratings may be achieved, but misunderstandings about the state of the world can be fostered.

Especially in commercial broadcasting, ratings are a matter of survival. However, as the program’s popularity indicates, viewers are interested in the world. Is it not possible to find a more balanced compromise that disseminates information about international affairs on a regular basis while promoting understanding of complex global situations?

Writer: Virgil Hawkins

Data: Sota Kamei

Note 1: Based on the back numbers of “Akira Ikegami News Specials” on TV Tokyo’s website (2010–2017), each program was divided into topics (usually three to four), the countries covered in each topic were identified, and the shares were calculated based on the percentage each topic occupied within the program. There is some discrepancy compared to the actual airtime.

Note 2: In cases that include both Japan and international coverage, such as Japan–China or Japan–U.S. relations, the share was divided by the number of countries involved, and the portion concerning Japan was counted as Japan coverage.

Note 3: In this analysis, Asia and the Middle East are shown separately.